Recruitment Business Start-Up Guide

Top Tips For Starting a Recruitment Business

Starting a recruitment business may seem like a great idea but it certainly isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. It’s easy to imagine, particularly if you’ve had a bit of involvement with HR, or indeed worked within the recruitment sector, that you have what it takes to make a success of a recruitment business.

If you are at this stage, it’s time to stop and think!

Use our Recruitment Start up Guide as an initial checklist to measure your thought processes against and to polish up your initial plans:

Areas we focus on include

Outline your recruitment business idea in detail. Like any other business idea, your recruitment business thoughts need to be brainstormed and explored in detail before you can be confident that you have everything covered when launch time comes.

Establish as far as possible that there is demand for your recruitment concept. It would be easy to assume with unemployment doom and gloom in the news day-in and day-out that there simply has to be demand for your recruitment business. If you’re tempted to think this way, stop. Whilst guaranteeing clients in any business, is nigh on impossible, it’s really important that you carry out sufficient research to satisfy yourself that there is demand for your specific idea and space for another provider.

Check out your recruitment competitors; direct and indirect. Even if you’ve developed a new recruitment concept where you’re convinced there is less competition, think again. Competition can be direct or indirect and it’s essential to establish what you’re likely to come up against.

Aim to establish the correct pricing strategy. Establishing the right price is rarely an exact science, but you’ll certainly need to take your competitor’s pricing into consideration, as well as your fixed and variable costs. Only by working this way will you get close to establishing whether your business might be profitable or not.

Define and refine your recruitment offering until it’s as perfect as you can get it. Most businesses barely resemble their initial concept once they come to launch. Only once you have your offering as perfect as you can get it should you even consider going to market.

Identify your three unique selling points (USPs). Your Unique Selling Points are the things that differentiate your recruitment business from your competitors’ businesses. Identifying your USPs is never an easy process, but the time you invest in this part of your communication will pay major dividends when you come to promote your recruitment business, either online or face-to-face.

Specify precisely how you will promote your business. Promotion of any business is at the core of its success or failure. If you’re not someone who’s comfortable networking, it’s unlikely that your recruitment business will be a hit. Making the right contacts, making them quickly and maintaining them are at the core of any successful recruitment business, as well as appropriate promotional activities. Make sure you have a year long plan stating specifically which contacts you will make, when and how.

Put together your recruitment business plan. Business plans can be as detailed or as simple as you like, but there’s no getting away from the fact that they are an essential part of your success. Acting as your GPS when times get tough, a good business plan will stand you in good stead for the whole year.

Give your business a name. Finding a name you’re happy with and that’s available, both at Companies House and as a domain name isn’t easy. Once again though, the effort you put in at this stage will pay dividends in the future. Don’t forget that your business name needs to make sense and you need to like it.

Establish your funding requirements. Most new businesses have requirements for funding of some description. Irrespective of whether it’s an overdraft facility or a loan you need, make sure you have the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted well before launch date. Also, don’t forget to check out the availability of any start-up grant or loan schemes that may be available to you.

Make sure you have the necessary support mechanisms in place. Financial and legal experts can be worth their weight in gold, particularly when setting up a recruitment business. Don’t be shy in seeking advice, because it will help avoid potentially expensive mistakes. Also, if you’re not planning to do your accounts yourself, now is the time to identify the right accountant.

Make sure you have the skills you’ll need to be successful. Running your own business involves a whole host of skills that doing a job doesn’t necessarily require. In the early stages of your business you could find yourself playing the role of bookkeeper, marketer, sales person and administrator as well as head-hunter, so you need to be geared up for each role. If you’re short on any of the skills you’ll need to run your recruitment business, make sure you close any skills gaps well before you launch.

Register your business. If your plan is to set up a limited company, you’ll need to register your business at Companies House. If you’re setting up on a self-employed or partnership basis you will need to register with HMRC for tax and National Insurance.

Get yourself online. In this day and age, even the smallest recruitment business is expected to have an online presence. That said, a website needn’t cost you an arm and a leg, and in some instances will cost you nothing. Do your research and start small. You can always grow your online presence as you start to get results.

Open a business bank account. Keeping your business finances tidy is essential if you’re aiming to run a tight ship. Establishing a relationship with a bank where you have a separate business account for your trading activities is something you should do sooner, rather than later.

If you are planning to set up a recruitment business and could do with a helping hand, why not get in touch?